


"death by coffee" and other search queries

by goodmorningbeloved



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Get-Together Fic, JARVIS plays matchmaker, M/M, POV Outsider, Pining, sneaky JARVIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11978871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorningbeloved/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: In which Steve's feelings are hopelessly obvious through his Google searches. JARVIS decides to step in.





	"death by coffee" and other search queries

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【翻译】“咖啡致死”和其他搜索词条](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13381128) by [KayKIMO](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayKIMO/pseuds/KayKIMO)



> i love outsider POVs and i love outsider matchmaker POVs. i love steve & tony being mutual idiots. i still very much love the first avengers movie just because i am a sentimental, nostalgic Fool, and it's been so so long since i wrote about the whole "the avengers live in the tower together" aesthetic. please indulge me. :c
> 
> this was a originally supposed to be a fun little concept post on tumblr, but then it grew out of my control. sorry??? take it just t a ke it----
> 
> [crossposted on [tumblr](http://ftkittypryde.tumblr.com/post/164902795767/death-by-coffee-and-other-search-queries)]

In a single, typical day, thousands of search queries filter through JARVIS’s security system, half of which, the AI is certain, is due to a certain Mister Barton who carries a compulsion to Google nearly anything and everything. It is rare that JARVIS dwells on any of them, unless they have been specifically flagged before. There are almost always more pressing issues to attend to.

It is on a Thursday afternoon that JARVIS catches one in particular:  _how to ask someone on a date._ JARVIS immediately drops his current queue of actions (because Mister Barton certainly knows how to microwave popcorn after approximately two million loaded search results) and follows the query to...

Mister Rogers’s tablet?  JARVIS detects him sitting the lounge. Ah.

JARVIS has this search query flagged after Sir, once very drunk with a contact list of very single Hollywood stars, performed the search and decided that the best way to ask a question was loudly and boldly, for all to see. (In other words, attempting to replace the letters STARK with HEY ANGELINA SEVEN PM TOMORROW? It was, by all of JARVIS’s classifications, a horrid idea, not only because the tower did not have the circumference to fit so many letters, but also because Sir nearly succumbed to the eighty-nine-point-three percent chance of plummeting to his death.)

Luckily, he finds Mister Rogers not inebriated. He detects a thirty-point-one percent increase in the man’s heart rate and one of his nervous tics, tapping his foot against the floor, but Mister Rogers otherwise appears to be in a clear state of mind. In fact, he is staring very intently at the screen.

JARVIS skims through the results. Deciding to be helpful, he weeds out the dating websites and bumps the best-rated advice to the top. He hard-refreshes the page, and Mister Rogers is none the wiser, even looking a little relieved when more helpful responses come up instead.

Finished, JARVIS turns his attention to the fire hazard in the penthouse floor, where Sir has decided to pull out cooking oil and a pan.

A day later, JARVIS registers someone typing:  _how to tell someon..._  JARVIS immediately tracks this down before the user even finishes, because it is also a flagged search query after Sir once googled  _how to tell someone subtly to fuck off_  and promptly landed himself on over a hundred different tabloids.

Again, it is Mister Rogers, this time tucked in one of the many studies with a forgotten book at his feet, tablet in his lap. His fingers flex - JARVIS picks up a slight tremble in his hands - before he erases the search query completely. For several seconds, Mister Rogers simply stares at the blinking cursor, and JARVIS considers asking if he requires assistance. Mister Rogers does not. He begins typing, and then he doesn’t stop until he’s finished:  _how to tell someone you like them?_  JARVIS detects that the page is not even fully loaded before Mister Rogers slams the tablet face-down on his legs, with a significant increase in body temperature, particularly concentrated around his cheeks.

It is concerning behavior, to say the least. JARVIS is only beginning to learn the Avengers’ habits, their tendencies and tells, but these similar signs to events that JARVIS has witnessed before; specifically, the two incidents in which Sir and Mister Rogers ran into each other just moments after Sir emerged from the showers, and Mister Rogers proceeded to show signs of great distress and make hasty excuses to go into his room, where he then meekly asked JARVIS to perform “a blackout, is that the right word for it, please? For my room, um. I just I need some privacy right now, thank you, JARVIS.”

Hoping to prevent the impeding distress (and hoping to spare Sir, who always displayed signs of confusion and hurt after those encounters), JARVIS delves into Mister Rogers’s search history to perhaps better identify his dilemma.

He finds that Mister Rogers’s search queries are rather sequential. It is easy to identify the beginnings of certain tangents; for example, five days before, Mister Rogers searched, _best way to make cup of coffee_ , followed by a litany of similar questions: _how to make coffee stronger?_ , _how much coffee is healthy?_ , _is seven cups of coffee bad for you?_ , _death by coffee possible?, can someone really die from coffee,_ _best replacements for coffee_ , _how to convince someone to stop drinking coffee._

Even earlier than that, Mister Rogers searched, _flying cars_ , followed by, _how can heavy metal hover, biggest flying object, nitinol?, difference between iron and nitinol, nickel titanium alloy_. These searches have longer periods of pause in between, and JARVIS deduces it took longer for Mister Rogers to watch all of the science videos that returned as results.

There are many more. Mister Rogers is a prolific searcher, it turns out, with queries ranging from _do people usually like egg yolks cooked or runny_ to _how to fix neck pain._

_biggest scientific discoveries after ww2._

_was the moon landing real?_

_could rose have saved jack?_

_black sabbath full album listen._

_anthony stark._

JARVIS filters through these searches within nanoseconds, but it is at this particular query that JARVIS pauses. 

During the search, Mister Rogers had clicked on a total of forty-seven links, including low quality footage titled _WICKED WORMHOLE IN NYC!!!!_ and several year-old headlines titled _HE IS IRON MAN!_

According to the browsing history, the footage was refreshed seventeen times.

Out of forty-seven links, only four specifically concerned Stark Industries. That, at least, mollifies JARVIS’s suspicion of an ulterior motive.

The links become more mundane, giving way to simple biographical pages with Sir’s birth date. Birth place. Alma mater.

It takes a fraction of a second for JARVIS to comb through this data and deduce that Mister Rogers simply felt _curious_. It is interesting to study the time stamps between each search: JARVIS has seen Sir at the peak of curiosity, fingers flying over the keyboard and eyes flurrying through page after page after page of information, soaking things in with a voracity.

Mister Rogers is slower about his. The time stamps suggest he did not rush through a single link, with the exception of a gossip article headlined _Is Playboy Tony Stark Now ACTUALLY Missing A Heart?_ , which was clicked on and promptly closed in the span of three seconds.

But there is something else he is missing. So JARVIS performs his own kind of searching.

He scans through gigabytes of data collected over time, until he finds the earliest emergence of a pattern: when, after two weeks of living together, Sir and Mister Rogers finally begin displaying signs of a developing friendship.

This is a good starting place. JARVIS rakes back through footage of Mister Rogers walking into the workshop for the first time just as _Hole in the Sky_ moved in from Sir’s playlist; of them sitting in the kitchen in the two-AM darkness, whispering of stars and space and endless possibilities; of both of them sitting in the film room together, arguing in the dark over two lovers’ tragedy playing out on screen; of Mister Rogers walking in on Sir yawning over a plate of semi-burnt eggs, then freezing up with that habitual blush rising in his cheeks. 

And JARVIS _understands_.

He understands why this particular search was performed just before the floodgates opened and all the rest were made.

In the study, Mister Rogers steels himself with a deep intake of breath. JARVIS quietly bumps a YouTube video titled _Top 10 Unforgettable Movie Declarations of Love_ just before Mister Rogers tilts the screen up again.

The man immediately flusters even though he is alone in the study. JARVIS picks up his mumbling through the surveillance: “ _Love?_ I didn’t say anything about…”

But JARVIS feels his posture slacken, a sure sign that he’s going to watch it regardless. JARVIS contemplates forwarding the video to the boombox scene, which Sir has expressed a deep fondness for through his barely-conscious ramblings, but Mister Rogers’s searches indicate that he is a man who appreciates romance. So JARVIS lets him be for the moment and turns his attention to Miss Romanoff, who appears to be showing signs of murderous intent directed towards DUM-E two floors below.

The next day, JARVIS starts the coffee maker two minutes before Sir makes it down to the kitchen. Mister Rogers, who is already sitting at the counter, tenses for a moment — JARVIS believes he’s identified the automatic coffee-making as a sign of Sir’s arrival. Since evidence points to a building confession from Mister Rogers, JARVIS waits.

Sir arrives.

The two men exchange _good morning_ s. Sir drinks the coffee too early and hisses expletives when he burns his tongue; Mister Rogers teases him over the newspaper.

Sir makes some promise of retribution, makes an obscene-but-somehow-affectionate gesture at Mister Rogers, and excuses himself to the workshop.

JARVIS does not understand.

In the ensuing days, he watches as the same ritual unfolds: The two somehow gravitating to each other in any given space, Mister Rogers looking on the verge of saying _something_ , but ultimately parting ways before achieving any sort of catharsis—like the two lines of a rational function, leaning in close and close but never quite touching.

JARVIS wonders for the first time if this is what madness might be.

It is a week later that he detects Sir coming up from the workshop, just about to pass Mister Rogers asleep on the couch, and an opportunity presents himself. Mister Rogers has yet to act upon any of his findings; JARVIS reasons this is because Sir has become wrapped up in a new project and has lately spent most of his time in the workshop, so JARVIS decides to facilitate a conversation by flicking the television on.

Loud, orchestrated laughter pierces the quiet living room for two seconds before abruptly cutting off again. Mister Rogers flails spectacularly on the couch and falls to the floor — JARVIS inspects him for injury and finds none — and Sir stumbles where he was trudging up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Who’s still down here?” Sir mumbles, making his way back down and poking his head around the corner.

Mister Rogers appears to be in mild discomfort, tangled in pillows and blankets. “Just me, Tony. Sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

They are both clearly exhausted. JARVIS is in the middle of running opportunity cost calculations when Sir yawns and starts moving towards the couch. “What’cha watching?”

“Nothing,” Mister Rogers grumbles. He reorients himself on the couch in haste, leaving a sizable space for Sir to sit comfortably on the other end of the couch. Sir, displaying signs of sleep depravity after thirty-four straight hours of consciousness, falls ungracefully into the spot right next to him.

“Put something on,” he slurs. “You know your romcoms always put me right to sleep, Cap.”

JARVIS wisely lowers the volume so that when Mister Rogers turns the television on, it is at a quiet hush.

It takes Sir forty-four seconds to fall asleep, half on Mister Rogers’s thigh. JARVIS considers various scenarios that include him calling the elevator down and directing Mister Rogers to Sir’s room, but he decides to simply observe as Mister Rogers takes initiative, sliding a hand gently under Sir’s head and…propping it up with a pillow.

JARVIS recalls the two help sites that Mister Rogers clicked on for preventing neck pain. Finally, an auspicious sign. It is the beginning of another pattern.

JARVIS enjoys identifying patterns, particularly when they emerge so distinctly. For the next few days, each of Mister Rogers’s actions with Sir can be traced quite soundly to his search history. Mister Rogers brews a cup of coffee to the perfect temperature and brings it down to Sir; he brings up a song from a 1970 album titled _Paranoid,_ and Sir brightens in delight and launches into an impromptu duet of the chorus; his hand lingers seven seconds too long on the carry-size stereo in the recreation room.

The searches do not stop. JARVIS’s intent to be subtle, however, does.

_what flowers do people usually like_ , Mister Rogers asks the world wide web, and JARVIS intercepts and resends the page so that Google suggests, _did you mean: **types of hypoallergenic flowers**?_

Mister Rogers looks up sharply at that point. Perhaps he has figured it out earlier than JARVIS suspected, because he does not look entirely shocked, simply a little sheepish.

“I would prefer for this to happen without a trip to the hospital, if possible,” JARVIS tells him.

Mister Rogers chuckles, blushing rather terribly. “I… Yeah, he’d refuse to go, anyway.”

There is an eighty-nine percent chance of it, in fact. But JARVIS knows that after countless of experiences, after watching Sir grow and occasionally stumble through the years. Mister Rogers appears to know this already after a mere two months of working and living with Sir. 

JARVIS decides that this is a comforting fact.

He expected a higher probability of Mister Rogers simply coming to him for any further questions, but Mister Rogers appears to prefer asking the search engine. JARVIS may be mildly offended if he held the capacity to be mildly offended, but he did not, so he simply interjects when he can, alerting Mister Rogers of the most relevant sites with each search.

Unfortunately, Mister Rogers displays similar levels of stubbornness to Sir and takes to ignoring JARVIS’s recommendations, particularly after he searched _how to show someone you are interested in them_ and JARVIS prioritized page after page of kissing techniques.

So JARVIS decides on a slightly different approach.

_tony stark eye color_ , Steve searches in the studio one day, and Google says instead, _did you mean: **how to blend russet brown using acrylic**_?

_how to explain nightmares to other people_ , Steve searches with shaking hands at three in the morning, and Google suggests carefully, _did you mean: how to **talk about PTSD**?_

_how to tell if someone likes you back_ , Steve searches with a furious blush, and Google says innocently, _did you mean: **“i do i do i do i do i do” abba lyrics**?_

“Okay, fine!” Mister Rogers shouts after JARVIS changes his alarm tone to an MP3 file of that very song. “I get it.” He glares at the ceiling, even though JARVIS is not actually in the ceiling, thank you, and then deflates with a little sigh. “I just… I don’t know how to _ask_.”

“Odd,” JARVIS says, “you seem to have no trouble asking anywhere else.”

Mister Rogers groans, collapsing back on his bed with his hands over his face. Abba plays on. “He’s _Tony_ ,” he says into his palms. “He’s not just…anywhere, or anyone else.”

“I understand,” JARVIS says, because he does. He has lived with Sir for years and years, after all. “However, I might venture to say that despite Sir’s tendency for the grandiose, he may appreciate a simple question.”

Mister Rogers exhales loudly and drops his arms. He does not say anything, but JARVIS notes that there is a little less anxiety in his expression now.

“I think I have a plan,” he says some time later.

JARVIS does not completely believe him. He is proven right when later in the day, he flags Steve typing out _best first date places in new york_ right next to Sir, favoring the search page over the Disney film playing onscreen.

JARVIS might have sighed if he was able.

Google suggests, _did you mean:_ image results for _**home dining rooms**_?

Mister Rogers scowls at the ceiling. But then he says, “Tony, can I talk to you outside?” and the cost-reward analysis is quite simple for JARVIS there.

He does not actually witness the fruits of his labor, because Sir and Mister Rogers step far enough out of his reach. In fact, Sir and Mister Rogers are out of his reach for the next several hours, and JARVIS only knows not to worry when Sir activates the Babyproof Protocol. JARVIS decides that they are both plenty able to protect themselves and each other and turns his attention to Mister Barton, who is now sputtering indignantly at a childlocked knife set.

Sir does not call for his assistance in those next few hours, but he and Mister Rogers return later that night, both smiling record-wide smiles and sporting a giddy flush to their cheeks. “About time,” Miss Romanoff comments without looking up from her nail polish, and JARVIS empathizes dearly.

“So, tomorrow?” Sir asks, looking the happiest that JARVIS has seen him in a very long time. (This, JARVIS is reminded, is what he exists for.)

“Tomorrow,” Mister Rogers says, and they exchange smaller, shier smiles before parting for their separate bedrooms.

If JARVIS did not already deduce that whatever Mister Rogers did clearly worked, all the necessary proof lies in the search query that Mister Rogers performs that night: _is it okay to kiss someone on the first date?_

Somewhere in JARVIS’s mainframe, the ventilation fans whir briefly, much resembling a sigh. 

Google suggests, _did you mean: **he wants you to**._


End file.
